


Recall

by Calenderyear



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adams happy in college!, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Ronan goes to visit, So here we are, They still have a lot of issues though, which i like to write about
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 16:17:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11901456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calenderyear/pseuds/Calenderyear
Summary: His mother spoke up. "I'd like you to call. I'd like to know what you're doing.""I'll do that." he said.Adam tries to keep his word, but some things are easier said than done. Having friends and a boyfriend that love you helps. (takes place after TRK, when Adam is in college)





	Recall

_His mother spoke up. "I'd like you to call. I'd like to know what you're doing."_

_It was something. He could do that. In fact, that was probably all he could do._

_He knocked on the cabinet beside him, once, thoughtful, and then he took out the BMW keys. "I'll do that." he said._

_He waited just a moment longer, giving them the opportunity to fill the space, to exceed expectation._

_They did not. Adam had set the bar at precisely the height they could jump and no higher._

_"I'll let myself out." he said_

_He did._

* * *

 

"I'll do that." Adam had told his mother in his old, claustrophobic living room. Now, almost seven months later, he wondered whether he had told a lie. Simply looking at the phone in his hand brought on anxiety so strong it skipped the feeling of trepidation and went straight to violent nausea.

The phone itself was a gift, dreamed for him by Ronan, who had discovered the ultimate loophole in getting Adam to accept unlimited gifts, since they required no money. It was grey, and functioned like any other smartphone, though Adam was discovering it had its quirks: a battery that never died, a library preloaded with Ronan's awful music, and, if one tried to view porn on it, a message came up that read 'send me a picture you fucking pervert.’

The first model Ronan had dreamt him had only one ringtone: the murder squash song. Adam had refused to accept it until Ronan dreamt him another (though the ringtone for Ronan's calls remained unchangeable).

Having a phone had made his life infinitely easier in college, allowing for scheduling and music, and had become a necessity with Ronan, Blue and Gansey being so far away. Now though, his phone seemed like an enemy, taunting his weakness.

He couldn't remember how he had been so calm, confronting his parents months ago.

Maybe it had been the victory of graduation, the diploma he had lying in the front seat of the BMW that smelled and sounded like Ronan. The promise that he would spend the rest of the day celebrating with Blue and Gansey and Henry and the night celebrating with Ronan.

Maybe it had been the act of confrontation itself, the fact that he had returned, triumphant, to show his father that he won. He had lost his childhood, and half his hearing, but he won anyway.

This was much different. An attempt at pleasant conversation with people who were starkly unpleasant.  A progress report to people who didn't care about his progress, likely wanted to see him fail.

And here was Adam, alone in his dorm room, with no promise of Ronan or Blue or Gansey to ease the sting. He supposed he could call them, but that would feel like a defeat in itself.

He could call his parents and speak to them without interrupting his friends lives for moral support. He'd said he would, so he could. He had to.

Before he could begin dialing, a door swung open suddenly. He turned, a name about to leave his lips, before he shut them.

When windows opened, doors swung shut, objects fell from shelves, Adam still looked around, trying to find the source in someone who no longer existed.

It was not Noah. It was his roommate, Marcus, slumped over and being supported by his best friend Jaques, an extraordinarily tall black boy from Quebec, who was holding up scrawny Marcus with one arm.

Adam liked them both well enough, but they were no Gansey or Blue and after a few weeks of pleasant conversation and Adam turning down their invitations to parties, they had stopped inviting him.

Jaques nodded to him and Adam returned it. He saw Jaques about as much as he saw Marcus, between the dorm and the classes they shared.

"That was fast." Adam commented. He had expected a few hours of privacy, a limited resource in the two-by-four he shared with Marcus. Luckily, he had experience living in small spaces, though he didn't necessarily enjoy it. It had only been two months since college started, and already Adam longed for the wide open spaces of the Barns.

"Some idiot bet Mark he couldn't take ten shots in eight minutes without throwing up." Jaques said in his deep, faintly accented voice, and unceremoniously deposited Mark on his bed.

"Did he win?"

"No. He took the shots and then threw up all over the floor and passed out. Moron." He commented, scowling at Mark’s pale and lifeless form.

Adam snorted.

"What have you been up to?" Jaques asked. "Still studying?"

If hard pressed, Adam would be forced to admit that he liked Jaques significantly better than Mark, who was full of manic energy and reminded Adam of the parts of Henry that he didn't like very much. Jaques was calmer, more steady, and never asked too many questions.

Adam shook his head. "I was just about to call my parents". He said before he could stop himself.

Jaques raised an eyebrow but didn't comment. Adam knew he never mentioned his parents, beyond one admission that they didn't get along well after Marks insistent asking, followed by a defensive statement that no, he had financed his own way to Harvard, thank you, and was independent from his parents in all regards.

"I'll leave you alone then." Jaques said.

"No, it's okay. I'm not calling after all."

"Have you spoken to them at all while you've been here?" Jaques asked.

Adam shook his head, unconsciously feeling the skin of his deaf ear with his fingers. It was almost like touching someone else’s skin. He never totally got used to it, the dead silence.

"Is there something wrong with your ear?" Jaques asked, startling Adam.

"I-why do you ask?"

"You always turn this way when someone is talking to you."

"Oh. I didn't realize." Adam said, a bit surprised by this observation. He took a moment to banish the phantasm of his fathers fists before speaking again. "I'm deaf," Adam admitted. "in one ear."

"All your life?"

"No- it was a--" Adam opened his mouth to say accident, and couldn't make himself get the word out. After a beat of silence, Adam asked "Um, did you have a good night, besides Mark?"

Jaques smiled slightly, "You're very polite when you're trying to avoid a topic." He pointed out. Before Adam could respond, politely, Jaques said. "Don’t worry. You don't have to say. Everyone needs privacy, after all. Even among friends."

Adam nodded, grateful, the friend comment making him feel strangely warm. He had not quite been sure they were friends.

He had been so secure in his friends for so long that he had almost forgotten how to make new ones, if he'd ever known. He hadn't thought he would need to. He thought his own friends would sustain him, even from a distance. But it turned out he had gotten used to constant company, and become greedy. He could no longer exist silently alone, and he no longer had the work schedule that made that existence possible.

He had a few potential friends, in class, around campus, in the dorms. They would never be Blue and Gansey and Henry, but maybe they could be something else.

It would be another victory on Adams part. See, I'm not too screwed up to make friends.

"I should get going," Jaques said, "if I'm going to make it back to the party. You sure you don't want to go?" Adam actually considered it, but found absolutely no desire to subject himself to a room of drunk 18 year old Ivy Leaguers.

"No thanks." He said. "I think I'll call Ronan instead."

"Your farmer boyfriend?" Jaques sounded amused.

"My farmer boyfriend." Adam confirmed, also amused. He had told his acquaintances (friends?) a series of facts about Ronan, and left it up to them to put it together: he ran a farm and raised a lot of animals, he was raising the daughter of a distant relative, he had dropped out of high school, he had tattoos, and many people found him intimidating. Adam was quite looking forward to Ronan's first visit.

"Will we ever meet him?"

"Probably. He's coming up on parents’ weekend next month, with a few of my other friends. How about your girlfriend?" Jaques spoke of her often, and fondly.

He shrugged. "When she decides to make the trip from Montreal." He stood up. "I’ll leave you to your farmer." He declared.

“Right. Bye. Thanks for not letting Mark die."

"No problem, Tempting as it is." Jaques said and left with a wave.

Adam stared at the phone for a moment longer, typed in the first three of the numbers he had memorized as a child, then deleted them and dialed for Ronan instead.

 

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 

Three weeks later, Adam sat once more at his desk, phone in hand. Ronan was asleep on the bed behind him, Opal curled into his side. Mark had graciously vacated for the weekend, staying with his parents in their hotel so that he and Ronan could have the room. Gansey, Blue and Henry had put themselves up in a motel nearby for the next week.

Adam had been shocked at the emotions that seeing the three of them had brought up. Gansey had approached him from across the yard and Adam had surprised both of them by grabbing him into a tight hug.

"Sorry." Adam had said after, embarrassed.

But Gansey, looking at him with shining eyes had said. "Please don't be. I've missed you quite a lot." before they hugged again. Blue had attempted to pick him up in a hug and very nearly succeeded. Henry had given him an emphatic pat on the back and called him a series of nicknames he sincerely hoped no one he knew had heard.

Ronan had arrived almost an hour later, preceded by chainsaw, who had evoked a crowd reaction by landing on Adam’s shoulder in the middle of the quad. Adam knew he should be embarrassed by the following scene of reunion between him and Ronan, but he was still too high on it to care. With the memory of Gansey’s laugh and Blue’s smile, and the taste of Ronan still in his mouth, Adam felt fearless.

He dialed.

It rang for long enough that he almost hung up, but at the last moment there was a faint click and his mother's voice said "Hello?" 

Adam breathed. "It's Adam." He said.

"Oh. I didn't think you'd actually call."

"I said I would." He replied, already wishing this was over.

"Your father’s still at work" she said. He had forgotten how thick her accent was. He hadn't realized how much his own had faded.

"I know." He said. He had chosen this time to call for that reason.

There was a moment before his mother asked. "How is school then? Have you picked a major?"

"Not yet. I'm on the pre-law track, though."

When he had announced this to Ronan, he had snorted and said "Shit Parrish, weren't you already possessed by a demon? Why do you want to become one?" He'd softened considerably when Adam had explained he wanted to work in children's advocacy.

"Isn't that your major then?" She asked, and he reminded himself of how much they didn't know. He doubted either of his parents had ever even considered college.

"No. You can major in anything and go to law school. You get a law degree after your undergrad, which is what I'm doing right now."

"You want to be a lawyer then?"

"I think so." He liked the idea, reasoning out problems and solving them, using logic instead of anger or emotion. Helping all the other Adams out there, as best he could. He wanted to give other children the reassurance he'd gotten from his own court case. That it was not their fault. It was there in the law: they'd been wronged. He thought it was a good way to reconcile his innate ambition and need for financial stability with his Gansey-like desire to do good.

"Hm. That’ll give you enough money to keep up with your lifestyle, I guess." His mother said. Adam felt the impact of her words between his ribs and ignored it. "You still with that boyfriend of yours?" She asked him.

"I'm still with Ronan, yes." Adam said, bracing himself. They had not made any particular comments about it when he last spoke to them, but he thought they might just have been too surprised. They had certainly never lacked opinions on the subject.

His mother paused before saying. "That kid seems like trouble. It’s never a good thing to decide on someone at your age."

Adam blinked, unsure what to do in the face of what almost sounded like concern. Her tone made him consider, for the first time, his parents’ relationship. He had never really thought of them as two separate people. Just a solid unit of two, a threat, with one half more dangerous than the other.  He didn't know if they loved each other. It was hard to imagine they did. He wondered if they'd ever been happy together, before he was born.

"Um right. I'll keep that in mind." He said.

"You do that. Is that all?" She asked.

"For now." He said.

"I'll tell him you called." She said and hung up.

He breathed, then breathed again. A small hand came up to rest comfortingly on his thigh. He turned and found Opal standing there, her grey eyes blown out in concern.

"Hey." He smiled at her. "I thought you were sleeping."

"We were." Said another voice behind him. "But someone wouldn't quit fuckin’ yacking."

When Adam turned, Ronan was sitting up on the bed.

Adam smiled just at the sight of him. He couldn't believe how easy smiles came to him now, even so soon after speaking to his mother.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

"Don't worry about it." Ronan gestured to the phone still in his hand. "Why the fuck were you calling those assholes?"

"How do you know who I was calling?"

"You were tense as all hell. And you only sound like that when you're talking to them."

Adam couldn't believe he'd ever though he was unknowable. Ronan could read him like a book- a fact Adam had mixed feelings about.

"I told them I'd call."

"I know that. I don't get why you'd want to. Your parents are scum." He added with the utmost disdain. Adam felt a flare of irritation. He appreciated Ronan's righteous anger on his behalf, but he also knew that he would never understand what it was to grow up how Adam had, as his parents had before him: with nothing. Adam understood where his fathers anger came from, his mothers bitterness. He always had.

"I’m the product of that scum." Adam reminded him.

Ronan scoffed. "Being scum isn't genetic, Adam. It's a lifestyle choice."

I know that." Adam bit out.

"Fuck, don't get defensive. Not over them."

"I'm not defending them, Ronan. I know that they were wrong. But it's pretty irritating to hear you talk like understand. Where do you get off with your judgment?"

"What exactly is it that I don't understand, Parrish?" Ronan asked, the use of his last name indicating rising annoyance.

"What its like to have to choose between tooth paste and toilet paper. Dinner and soap. It's fucking stressful. It cuts you off at the pass no matter what you try to do. You don’t get it."

"This has nothing to do with you being poor, it has to do with your dad using you as a fucking punching bag."

"Of course it has to do with being poor, Ronan!” Adam snapped. “When you’re poor, _everything_ has to do with being poor. I don't pretend to understand your problems, so how about you quit pretending to understand mine?"

Ronan scowled, a menacing expression, but before he could reply, Opal clambered into his lap and clapped her hand over his mouth.

"The fuck?" Ronan demanded, gently knocking her hand away.

"Stop being mean." She declared. "You too." She added, glaring at Adam, who immediately felt his anger draining. He could never be mad at Opal.

"Sorry, Opal." He said.

"Don't say it to me." She said, pointing at Ronan.

Adam almost spoke but Ronan, without any heat, said “Don’t bother.”

He stood up. "It's late. I should get the brat dinner. Do you want anything? I'm just going to that convenience place down the street."

"Coffee, please." Adam sighed. "I have to study for an exam on Monday."

Ronan nodded and dismissed Adam when he tried to hand him a five dollar bill.

"Consider it a fee for letting me sleep here, if you have to come up with a reason."

"You're my boyfriend, Ronan." Adam said, feeling as tired as Ronan sounded. "You don't have to pay to stay in my room with me."

Ronan stood up, took Opals hand, and nodded once before walking out the door.

 

He returned almost 20 minutes later, his cheeks pink from the cold, with a plastic bag and a coffee, which he handed to Adam. Out of the plastic bag, Ronan took a six pack of beer and a small case of Pringles, which Opal started into, plastic and all.

"One good thing about this frozen hellscape." Ronan said. "It keeps your beer cold when you’re walking." He paused for a moment before asking "Want one?"

Adam stared at his notes, considering. He had been totally unable to study in the time Ronan had been gone, his mind stubbornly disobeying him. Now, with Ronan here, the likelihood his concentration would improve was slim. He sighed and pushed his coffee to the side before accepting the beer from Ronan, who smiled thinly. Adam smiled back.

"Has Harvard taught you to relax, Parrish?" He wondered.

"Hardly." Adam said. "I can't concentrate when you’re here." He admitted.

Ronan's smile took on a wolfish quality. "I'm that distracting, am I?"

"Don't flatter yourself." Adam said, taking a sip of the beer. It was bitter and cheap, and smelled like the trailer park, but it smelled like Ronan too, and like Aglionby boys on hungover Mondays.

"Parrish, I'm sorry." Ronan said suddenly. If was a skill they were both learning, ever so slowly: to apologize to each other. Adam hadn’t thought they would change that part of their relationship. That it would be it like always had been, both of them silently understanding the other was sorry, or just dropping the issue. And it _was_ like that, sometimes. But other times words were necessary to ease the sting. Realizing that, Adam understood, was a part of growing up. "Are you pissed?"

Adam shook his head. "I'm sorry, too." He said. It was so much easier to apologize when Ronan did it first. "Next time I talk to my parents, I probably shouldn't be around anyone for a while."

Ronan scowled. "You don't have to talk to them, Adam. You don't owe them shit."

"I know." Adam said. "It's not about that."

"What's it about?"

"Being the bigger person. Recovery." He didn't like using that word, admitting that there was something to recover from. That something fundamental inside him still needed fixing. It was also, on some level, quite spiteful. He wanted, _needed_ , them to know that he was successful, despite it all. Ronan might have understood that better, but Adam didn't feel comfortable voicing it, in part because his relationship with Ronan was included in the success that he was showing off.

Ronan said, "I hate them."

"I know you do." Adam said. "It's nice that you do, since I can't.”

"Don't worry, I'll hate them enough for you too, then." Ronan said. Then: "It pisses me off, seeing you hurting yourself trying to talk to them when they don't deserve it. They don't deserve to have anything to do with you, Adam."

"They're my parents." Adam said, as if it was that simple.

"I don't care who they are. They hurt you." Ronan replied, just as simple. And maybe it was that simple, to everyone else. It never would be for Adam.

Adam got up from his desk and sat next to Ronan on the bed, leaving his beer on the desk. It had been a peace offering more than anything else.

"Thank you. For being angry for me."

Ronan huffed a non-verbal response.

Adam hesitated before adding. “And for that night. When you came back. I don't think I ever thanked you."

"Fuck, you don't have to--"

"I do. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't come back." He admitted. Best case scenario, his father stopped there and Adam dealt with a concussion and deafness on his own, until the next time his father got angry. Worst case, Adam died. Was killed.

It had stung him for so long that Ronan's intervention had been necessary. That Adam had needed someone's rescue, possibly just to survive. He had lasted _so long_ on his own, not relying on anyone, and at the last minute he’d needed _Ronan_ of all people--

It felt stupid now, how long he had denied his friends helping hands. He knew it was stupid. But he couldn't totally let go of the Adam who had needed his independence, who had needed to know he could survive on his own. Now he knew, and so now he could let himself lean on Ronan's shoulder and drive his car and accept Gansey’s presents with a smile. In the end, he could not be sorry for the way things had worked out.

Ronan's hand came to the side of his head, stroking his hair. Adam signed and leaned into his touch.

"If it hurts, Adam, don't talk to them. Please. They've put you through enough."

Adam said "I think, in the long run, it might hurt more if I don't talk to them."

Ronan was quiet for a moment before he said, "Okay."

"Thank you."

Ronan snorted. "I haven't done anything."

"You have." Adam insisted.

"You're such a stupid fuck." Ronan said and it was fond and worried and amazed all at once.

"I'd have to be, to like you." Adam retorted, pulling back to look at him.

Ronan smiled, that razor sharp smile that Adam loved. "Ain't that the truth?" he agreed and they both leaned forward.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow I have a lot of feelings about Adam Parrish, but don't we all. Excerpt from TRK at the beginning is abridged. I'm not super happy with this, but I don't wanna stare at it any longer. Any kudos, questions, comments or concerns is greatly appreciated. Hope y'all enjoyed!


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